Confederate raiders from Canada set out on an 1864 mission to free the Confederate officers imprisoned on Johnson's Island. A dead body appears on Rattlesnake Island where rainbows end and a 130 plus year search commenced for a missing trunk. While visiting his aunt in Put-In-Bay in 2001, a Washington Post investigative reporter runs afoul of a wealthy island shipping magnate and investigates the circumstances surrounding the Confederate raid and the missing trunk. He also fights to control his passionate feelings for the married woman he meets on South Bass Island. The cry from a sea gull soaring overhead brought Colonel Shelby Harrington out of his daydreaming. He noticed that the Lake Erie waters were calming now that the storm, which had quickly swept out of the northwest, had subsided. His gaze focused toward Rattlesnake Island as the clearing skies revealed a rainbow, appearing to end on the island. It wouldn't be much longer before they would arrive at their third port of call, Put-in-Bay, to take on wood for the steamer. Then, it would be time for actions. They had boarded the Philo Parsons that crisp July morning as it prepared to disembark from Windsor, Canada. The other passengers and crew members had watched with interest as several of Harrington's men struggled to unload a large, padlocked trunk from the wagon and carry it aboard. The struggle was drawing too much attention to them Harrington thought to himself. McCormick and his group of 16 men, disguised as workmen, had boarded in groups of two at the ferry's second stop in Malden, Canada. Four of the raiders had carried aboard a smaller padlocked trunk, the type that workmen used to store their tools. But this trunk contained revolvers, had axes, knives and ammunition for the raiders. All thirty of the raiders and LeBec were mingling with the crowd on the steamer as it had fought its way though the stormy water. Harrington had overheard one the passengers commenting that storms had a way of blowing in quickly from the west, and because of the Lake Erie's shallowness, caused the lake to become rough within a few minutes. They were right. Harrington had seen several of his fellow raiders hanging their heads over the rail and retching. There were more comfortable on cavalry mounts and charging into Yankee lines. It seems that it was just yesterday rather than 6 months ago that he has been summoned by James Mallory, head of the Confederate Secret Service, into President Jefferson Davis' office in Richmond.
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